Like Father, Like Son
by Thorn In Your Side
Summary: Or so they would have him think. Lawliet reflects on Yagami elder and Yagami younger, and eventually makes up his mind as to whom he prefers.


**Like Father, Like Son**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. Honest.**

**A/N: Mild canon-fucking, I guess. **

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

Both Yagami-san and Light-kun were heroes.

L knew he had apprehended many dangerous criminals in his time (BB, he vaguely misses you) but he had never been a hero.

To be a hero you needed a face. L was a letter of dubious trustworthiness and enormous intellect, but no face.

Yagami-san and Light-kun had good faces. They were faces a person could trust; those were eyes a person could look into and say, "Yes, I will follow you." L had eyes a person would peer uncomfortably at and say, "I have to take this call." Lawliet's eyes, he thought as he looked into the mirror, were flat and unaffected. Light-kun's eyes boiled. Yagami-san's eyes blazed. Even Matsuda Touta had eyes worth looking at but he was an idiot and not part of this assessment.

Where was he?

In the bathroom.

No, where **_was _**he?

Assessing eyes.

Shinigami Rem had coldly interested eyes; Higuchi Kyosuke who had been Kira the Third had mad eyes. Lawliet was getting ahead of himself. Starting at the beginning was vital to...um, something important.

At the beginning.

Yagami Soichiro struck him as somewhat foolish, but he had been grateful to the man for talking his subordinates into trusting L. The recluse enjoyed solving cases by himself but he would need the police for this one.

Yagami Light struck him as far too perfect, but he had been relieved to find at long last a...worthy adversary? Or an equally high-handed friend. L was totally into psychological thrills and Light with his finely controlled movements presented endless hours of fun.

Later, they switched.

It was after Light and Soichiro were released from their prisons...no, during their confinement. In the father L saw stoic bravery and seething passion and...intelligence. Nothing compared to his son's, but it was there. It quirked Lawliet's eyebrow. It interested him. Just how far could Soichiro see?

Light on the other hand went batshit on him after a week and **_he _**looked ridiculous, as opposed to his brooding, pensive father. In the car? What the hell was that? He lost his cool (well so would most people when faced with imminent death but L had high expectations of Light and was bitterly disappointed when he didn't perform). Soichiro, though, was the height of awesome. What an actor! What convincing attitude! An Oscar for the man, please.

Please.

Please let Light be Kira.

Or actually, please let Light not be Kira.

If it was the first, Lawliet would continue to believe in himself and his rock-solid ability to catch a culprit. If it was the second, he would gain an invaluable friend and also his entire family. Although he'd never met the XX chromosomal side of the Yagami clan and wasn't much inclined to, so let's just say he'd gain (keep) an invaluable friend and...

What was Yagami Soichiro to Lawliet?

...Let's come back to that...

Light sat like a woman. For all his rigid discipline, when he slumped in his chair with his legs crossed and a hand supporting his chin, Light didn't look like Soichiro's son at all. Lawliet had a good eye for this kind of thing. Soichiro, when he sat, was Japanese. His fists on his knees, he wouldn't so much sit as fight the urge to kneel on a proper tatami mat. Like the days of yore! Lawliet loved it. That kind of self-control was so endearingly at odds with his own quirk of sitting as he pleased.

(L clearly was not spending enough time on the Kira case, free as he seemed to be to contemplate the ways in which his colleagues **_sat._**)

Light was ticklish. Soichiro was not.

Ohmigosh, you wanna know how L knows **_that_**? The younger Yagami was squirming when Lawliet gave him a footrub (he was...quite good at that...the way his fingers **_pushed _**against the bundle of nerves that had been aching without Light even realizing...and a movement of his hips that jostled his torso, plus a whimper held back... does this sound perverted?) and it was all L could do to stop himself from laughing. Light, who might be Kira, displaying such a mundane weakness. Perfection was flawed.

But was flawed Soichiro perfect in that aspect?

(Ridiculous to attribute..."in that aspect"...of course if perfection must be achieved it would be total, _**ineffable, **_god dammit it wasn't bought in pieces, it wasn't perfection that way...)

He'd cornered the man easily and asked, "Yagami-san, you look quite exhausted. Do you want a massage?"

That was **_exactly _**what a prostitute had said to him a week ago when he'd been waiting for a taxi to hail home (minus the Yagami-san. Duh) and Soichiro went loopy from all these crazy days of Kira-chasing and said, "Yes."

A hand seized him and shoved him into the nearest room and that same hand locked the door and then pulled his foot out from under him. Soichiro fell with a graceless crash to the floor and groaned, "Ryuuzaki, what are you doing?"

To which Lawliet, Ryuuzaki, Hideki Ryuuga (not the washed up pop star), Russia's biggest love machine (hah, gotcha) replied, "Giving you a massage."

Because, well. It was kinda obvious.

Soichiro accepted his fate and sat on his bottom, his palms braced behind him against the floor and his eyes diligently observing an old prodigy at work. This was the man who'd raised Light and Sayu, so he thought he knew the entire spectrum a child could fit in but **_fitting in _**was something L just didn't do.

He didn't cringe, didn't move a muscle when Lawliet played between his toes with a too-inquisitive thumb. His lips didn't twitch and his eyes didn't blink. Lawliet watched his face and thought, "Your son stares in an entirely different way. One that doesn't raise the hair on the back of my neck I didn't even know I had."

And another thing. Light had said, "No one is perfect. Everyone lies at some point." But that was another lie on Light's endless list, albeit unintended. Lawliet doesn't think Yagami Soichiro has ever lied in his life. In. His. **_Whole. _**Life. Because who can imagine Soichiro sneaking out for a smoke, for a girl, for a boy? Who can imagine Soichiro taking the last doughnut and blaming it on his little brother? Lawliet prided himself on his imagination, which was malleable and wild and thought like a criminal. Lawliet couldn't imagine it. He couldn't picture it.

Perfection was ineffable; so was Soichiro. Except when Lawliet pointed a long pale finger at his sticky son (or is that the finger) but even in that moment of unguarded chagrin he was untouchable, Lawliet couldn't read him but Lawliet could read Light and Light was...was Kira, and Soichiro was the father who...who...

There were similarities between them as well.

(And I'm not swinging the topic around at all.)

Apart from the aforementioned heroism, Light and his father shared a distaste for disobedience. And such a strong sense of justice! Scorching. They were both good leaders, inspiring to behold. Lawliet compared himself with one or the other most days and found himself falling short. In warmth, approachable spirit, in good old-fashioned **_humanity _**L failed hard. He consoled himself with the fact that neither Yagami could hold a candle...or even a match! to his intellect but had to concede Light's superiority one day or the other. Who was it that first spotted Yotsuba's suspicious growth? And so quick-thinking when it came to manipulating Namikawa Reiji...no. Lawliet couldn't hold his own there either.

The more he watched the father the better he understood the son. Both functioned in the same, methodical way but there was something in Light's countenance that gave away his creeping consciousness that he was someone worth watching. Was it the way his eyes sometimes flicked to Lawliet, as though for approval? Soichiro never did that. He was comfortable in his adult capacity for working his place in the world.

And we're back to differences.

Light's cheeks were full and youthful while Soichiro's were hollowed (with age?). Light's hair was smooth as quicksilver while Soichiro's was like a porcupine's backside. (Lawliet's hair **_looked. _**Soichiro's hair **_felt._**) Light's movements were spry and graceful while Soichiro's were somber and dignified. Light was effeminate (playing tennis, Lawliet thought he'd look better in a skirt) while Soichiro was **_macho _**(Lawliet knew he was romanticizing the incident but the way he had so recklessly driven into Sakura TV's headquarters...!).

Light was delicately pretty while Soichiro was ruggedly handsome.

Lawliet was amused to note that observation in himself. He was quite sure which one he preferred and less sure that he chose in good taste.

But then. No one would ever know his preference, so it was alright.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Episode 25. **

**I was like, WHAT THE FUCK HOW GAY IS THIS but shockingly, instead of giving me the fangirl squeals, it pissed me off. I've never liked requited L/Light but now I'm officially a fan of SoiLawl. :D Older men ftw. **

**But I love the indignities mangaka and animators will put their characters through for the sake of fanservice. ~stares at Park Soo-Hae~**


End file.
